


Of Buttercups and Feathers by Any Other Name

by Darian_MacGyver



Series: Herbary of Blood [1]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Attempted Murder, BAMF Jaskier | Dandelion, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Burial Mounds, Character Death, Dismemberment, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Killing Spree, M/M, Monster of the Week, Not What It Looks Like, Pre-Slash in the Future Sequel, Proofread, Secret Identity, Sorry Not Sorry, The Author Regrets Nothing, grieving jaskier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:55:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22640629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darian_MacGyver/pseuds/Darian_MacGyver
Summary: Jaskier put the last large oblong grey stone upon a burial mound with tears running freely down his face and started to cover it over, with handfuls of freshly dug out dirt and turfs of still mostly green if somewhat wilted grass he had removed earlier to create a shallow hole he carefully laid his first and only friend in.Proofread by Kyn Moonlight (but I decided to make a few changes right before posting so any mistakes you see are all mine)
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Herbary of Blood [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1628695
Comments: 5
Kudos: 101





	Of Buttercups and Feathers by Any Other Name

Jaskier put the last large oblong grey stone upon a burial mound with tears running freely down his face and started to cover it over, with handfuls of freshly dug out dirt and turfs of still mostly green if somewhat wilted grass he had removed earlier to create a shallow hole he carefully laid his first and only friend in.

The heavy rocks he was able to carry here from a nearby stream would prevent predators from getting to the body and disturbing his companion from his eternal peace, but the dirt overgrown with plants would hide it from the prying eyes of men who would not cringe at digging up fresh corpses and robbing the dead of their meager possessions.

Leaving the remains of what was once a sentient being to be gnawed upon by the wild beasts and monsters that would scatter the picked-clean bones miles over the forest.

His friend deserved to be left undisturbed in his death, while his life had been cut unfairly and so tragically short.

With many decades yet left to live, almost all his life in front of him out of his lifespan, and the greed of men took that away with a single upwards slice of a dull half rusted blade.

Robbing the world of something precious in the process and not even caring.

Good honest kind men that treated all beings equally no matter their origin, nor their species were rarer than diamonds and should be treasured by all. But the human thirst for gold and possessing something that did not belong to them, truly did not know any bounds.

The depravity of the true crime done here was turning his stomach.

The lute that was resting on the grass next to the new gravesite felt heavy in his hands, when he picked it up for the first time with an intention to play it.

By the hands that were still stained by the mixture of grave dirt and dried blood of its previous owner and his hired killers alike.

It was a beautiful and loved instrument that should be used to make the world a merrier place so he had sworn an oath silently to himself he would do just that. But first there was one last performance owed here in middle of the woods under a large ancient oak tree that from now on would serve as an unmarked headstone. 

Only known to him, and him alone to be here.

Jaskier wiped his shaking fingers from the worst of the mess on his new sky blue silk trousers dusting them off afterwards as well, only leaving rusty red lines trapped under his fingertips, so he would not get the strings of the lute dirty and ruined from the grime and started to play a mournful melody he could now remember clearly as a day.

A last tribute to the lost life of an aspiring musician.

It was a half forgotten lullaby from his friend’s childhood that had been his favorite when he was a boy barely five years old and he hopped the sentiment would be appreciated. 

A kind elderly nursemaid his parents had fired from their service for being too codling and loving, now probably long dead and buried too, used to sing it to him to put him to sleep. 

It felt fitting to use it one last time to do so.

The melody started to echo through the forest and he added the words soon afterwards. Voice strong clear and sure, like he had sung the song about the lost half mad girl that danced among the olds stones surrounded by the ghosts of her loved ones a thousand times before and not for the first time in his unnaturally long life.  
Words seemed to fit the situation well enough, the irony of it wanted to curl his lips into a bitter snarl but he refused to let them do that and continued to sing the chorus again instead.

“And she never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave ..... never wanted to leave.”

After all he was sort of a ghost as well, standing over the soon to be old and forgotten grave stones now. An after image of someone murdered in a cold blood haunting the earth wearing the face of the dead man that he just buried here.

The human who had originally worn it from birth died in his arms gasping for a desperate breath one last time while the bright red blood bubbled from his pale lips, drowning him as it filled his lungs instead of air. Chest cut open by a steel sword that cleaved him almost from his sternum over the entire length of his belly. Revealing muscle internal organs and bones, from being hidden under healthy flushed skin dressed up in silks to the world to see before they were drenched by blood that started to pour out of the clearly mortal wound.

Jaskier has used the same sword that had killed his friend after he took his Form before his last breath and slaughtered the surprised men that were not ready to fight an enraged Doppler with unnatural reflexes and strength far above their own.  
Their frail human bodies soon laid broken in the dirt that turned into a brown red colored mud bath from all the blood that had been spilled over it, moaning as they died one by one.

Limbs sometimes cut and sometimes simply torn out of the joint sockets freely scattered all around them as they watched with horror their own severed hands and feet twitch, while lying several feet away from their previous owners to whom they were originally attached.

But not any longer.

Like they were no more than a child’s toys made out of old scraps of fabrics that gave easily way under a simplest strain. Muscles and tendons and ligaments torn to pieces like easier than a page of a parchment. Bones breaking, making noises like dried out branches being turned into kindling.

He had left them there to rot, flies already buzzing around their flesh as a macabre bountiful feast prepared for their dinner and to lay their eggs in, so the worms could start eating their now death glazed eyes out of their sculls before the birds got to them too.

Not caring enough about them to even drag their pieces from the middle of the road they had died on. Someone else would have to do that to clear the path for merchant wagons and travelers if they got bothered by the smell of rotting corpses but he did not care about such things at all. 

The Shifter named after his mother’s favorite flower and funnily enough Julian’s as well, just knelt in the blood soaked dirt and then cradled his dead friends now cooling down body that looked like his identical twin to the last mole.

A friend that did not care about Jaskier not being a human when they first met and talked with him like an equal about his dreams and plans for the future and embraced him in friendship like a long lost brother he had never had.  
Jaskier now doing the same, but with tears freely flowing from his newly cornflower blue colored eyes, leaving streaks down his cheeks as they washed down the congealing blood from his murderous spree until the day turned to the night and then morning again before finally carrying him to a small clearing away from the main road to put him to final rest.

The same place he was now standing over, wearing his face and spare clothes since the original ones he shifted into were an utter mess of blood, body fluids and pieces of grey brain matter from one of the skulls he had crushed with his bare hands

Clutching his friend’s beloved lute in the same hands so hard that his knuckles were turning white but still carefully enough not to destroy the carved neck of it made out of wood.

“Good bye Julian Alfred Pankratz Viscount de Lettenhove, sleep well. I will keep my promise to help however I can like we talked about. Your cousin will not be able to steal what was supposed to be rightfully yours. As long as I live you will live as well. I swear.”

With those parting words he had left the forest clearing to follow the road to the village Posada he and his friend were both planning to go not even a day earlier.  
Julian skipping and all excited about his first public performance of his original songs choosing the name Dandelion for himself partially for loving the flower and also as a private joke between them because Jaskier had the exact same meaning only in different language. 

His dream of becoming a famous bard and travel the Continent first instead just waiting to become a Marquis after his father passed away. 

Jaskier would not let that dream die with his friend.

All the songs and thoughts and memories copied perfectly from his first to his last breath inside his own mind would be sung and he would write even more of them as Julian would have done if his own cousin had not had him hunted down and killed like a stray dog by hired sell swords pretending to be bandits.

Julian the bard was gone.

Jaskier would take his place now and the Continent would not notice the exchange.  
He was going to fulfill his friend’s last wish of becoming the most famous musician and poet in the entire world no matter the cost. 

Using his own real name, only as a bardic nom de plume.

No one left alive would be able to tell the difference after all.

If nothing else he had at least a purpose for the next several decades, until he would be forced to shed this persona for good. Before the people would start to notice he was not aging like he was supposed to, if he had been a human being himself. 

With his new born determination he started to slowly walk towards the nearest settlement with an inn that was less than three hours away from here, where he was ready to face his new life as a professional bard and whatever the Fate decided to lay upon his feet.

Fin

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think. The relationships and pre-slash tags are mostly for the future parts of the series. But technically everything I am going to ever write from the Witcher universe is going to be Geralt/Jaskier or Geralt/Jaskier/Multi even if it didn’t happen in the story that’s tagged like that yet.


End file.
